'Pirates' sails from theme park to cinema

July 17, 2003|By Charles Passy, Cox News Service.

ORLANDO — It is, of course, just a theme-park ride. In this case, a meandering boat trip that's intended to replicate a journey through the treacherous waters of the Caribbean during the heyday of the pirates, replete with synthetic treasure, synthetic villagers and -- what else? -- synthetic pirates.

But something happens during the 81/2-minute odyssey that is Walt Disney World's Pirates of the Caribbean, the Magic Kingdom attraction that's hidden within a building resembling a Spanish fort.

From the time you make your way through the damp corridors leading to the boarding area to the moment you splash down -- literally -- and find yourself in the midst of an explosive battle between pirates and villagers, you suspend all notion of reality.

The sights -- a building set ablaze, a pirate poring over his treasure map -- are somehow too vivid. The sensations -- a rush of wind, a drop down a darkened waterfall -- too haunting.

You've escaped the steamy present-tense of a Central Florida summer's day for an alternate existence, a swashbuckling world where men indulge in too much rum, take what's not rightfully theirs and land in jail as a final consequence.

You are, in other words, there.

And that's precisely the way Walt Disney came to envision it when he made Pirates of the Caribbean, working with his trusted team of Imagineers in the mid-'60s. It bowed at California's Disneyland -- his first theme park -- in 1967, just a few months after his death.

Now, 36 years later, the attraction has emerged as an undisputed classic, a ride so popular that it's been cloned at Disney parks throughout the world, including those in Tokyo and Paris. And it's considered the inspiration for many latter-day attractions, including not only those at Disney but rival theme parks, as well.

And while Disney officials won't reveal how many people ride it each year, it's safe to say you can expect a wait of up to 20 minutes to board the pirate ship on a busy day. (The wait would be even longer if the ride didn't boast such a well-designed system of loading passengers. The California version can reportedly handle up to 3,400 visitors per hour.)

But the real proof of Pirates' place in popular culture came this past week, when the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," opened, starring Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush. No, it's not the first Disney ride to be turned into a movie. (That distinction goes to "The Country Bears," a stinker from last year.) Nor will it be the last. (Coming to theaters this fall: "The Haunted Mansion.")

The movie earned $13.5 million on its opening day, besting the first-day for "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and landing among the top 10 Wednesday openings of all time.

But the mere fact that "Pirates" has been developed by producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Con Air" and "Pearl Harbor") tells you a little about how much the ride is, well, treasured.

"If the ride weren't as good as it is, it wouldn't have withstood the test of time and captivated so many of us for over 35 years," Bruckheimer has said.

Not that Pirates -- the ride -- seems so bold on the surface, especially when compared with its contemporary theme-park brethren, from high-tech roller coasters to 3-D theater-style films. Nor was it exactly a new concept in its day.

Attractions tell stories

With the opening of Disneyland in 1955, Disney introduced the idea of telling a story through an attraction, often using some of his most popular movies, from "Peter Pan" to "Dumbo," as the basis for the narrative. And in 1963, with the Enchanted Tiki Room show, he added the concept of Audio-Animatronics -- essentially, robotic "performers" that could move and interact with surprising realism.

But what Pirates did was combine Disney's passion for storytelling with his technological savvy on a massive -- and fully immersive -- scale.

It became more than a ride. It became an experience. And that, in turn, became what a new generation of theme-park visitors expected. Without Pirates, there would have been no Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney-MGM Studios or Terminator 2: 3-D at Universal Studios Florida, newer Orlando attractions with a similar concept of sensory overload. But the remarkable thing is that Pirates continues to hold its own with such contemporary showcases.

"What strikes a lot of people is the scope of the thing, the number of scenes you pass through and how each one of those scenes is sort of a masterpiece in itself, but integrates with the whole," says Bob Sehlinger, the publisher behind the popular Unofficial travel guide series and a self-confessed Pirates fanatic.

Indeed, think of a trip on Pirates as the equivalent of a guided tour through a museum, but, in this case, the paintings are rendered in three-dimensions -- and with a cinematic flair. Or better yet, think of it as a movie that you're directing, frame by painstaking frame.